Puppets and Coins
by Theartofeatingnoodles
Summary: When you grow up in a life shaped entirely with hard lines and sharp corners, you easily end up with a desire for the exact opposite.    A series of independent drabble-like stories. Slight chance of other pairings. Rated T for possible future scenarios.
1. Just a Puppet on a String

_I appreciate critique of any kind. Also, I don't own Harry Potter, in case you were, you know, wondering.  
><em>_Thanks for reading.  
><em>

**Just a Puppet on a String  
><strong>

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><p>Draco Malfoy has never been a bad dancer. When one's family has been as wealthy and popular as his once was, dancing is a necessity on certain occasions.<br>But tonight, tonight he has a hard time simply trying to not step on her small feet. This, he knows, is probably because he keeps shooting glances at their spectators.  
>It is no wonder that she eventually gained quite a few friends once people outgrew the nicknames and stopped stealing her belongings. With a personality bordering on carefree like hers, nor is it a wonder that they grew protective.<p>

"Look at me."  
>It is the first time she speaks since she asked his wife if she could borrow a dance, saying that it was, after all, her birthday-party and she wanted to dance with everyone if they would allow it.<p>

He spins her briefly.  
>Surely they're all holding their breath, waiting for him to do something that will take that little constant smile off her face. His growing paranoia and frustration leaves it tempting to follow their expectations.<br>Old habits die hard. So do reputations, apparently.

"Just look at me." Her voice is so gentle, so painfully aware.  
>He tries, he really does.<br>Eventually she lifts her small hands to his face, steadying it, forcing him to stop averting his eyes again. How stupid of all of them to think that she is not stronger than everyone in that room. How stupid of them to think that the puppet is not him, that a flick of her fingers would not send him falling to the ground.

"You're better than that. Just look at me." When she speaks with so much optimism, how can he not do his best to appear comforted?

She has to stand on her toes to place her head by his shoulder, so the dance falters for a moment.  
>"To me, you're worth just as much as either of them. Nothing less." Her whisper leaves him colder than usual.<p>

He gulps, but allows her another of those spins she seems to enjoy so much before continuing.  
>Her laughter fills the room, removing the tension in his body.<p>

She doesn't do this to him on purpose, but she does it nonetheless. Being innocently unaware of how seductive she really is is no excuse for him to not tell her or at least turn her down.  
>And yet, he lets her, because he's already lost.<p> 


	2. A Hint of Realization

**A Hint of Realization**

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><p>It probably didn't come as a surprise to most people that the youngest member of the Malfoy family had never been much for books. Any further distraction when his procrastinating had finally ceased a little was welcome, so he quickly threw his homework – consisting of 40 pages of reading for his History of Magic class – away when he heard the echoing footsteps indicating that someone was near the Slytherin dungeon. Crabbe and Goyle appeared by the entrance, and about damn time too.<p>

"You were eating dessert all this time again?" Sneering had become a habit. A method used to momentarily drown out the headache that seemed to have no end these days.  
>An apology was mumbled, followed by a fumbling with objects he couldn't perceive in the dim light of their common-room.<p>

He frowned. "What's that, Goyle?"

"Loony's shoes." Both Goyle and his eternal companion had cracked up in what he found to be unnecessary laughter. He wondered if he had ever really found this amusing. Surely they could've come up with something better? Watching the two of them looking as if they were choking on their own snorts, he decided clinically that they probably couldn't.

He didn't comment on the choice of prank for once, instead settling for a nonchalant glare. "Very well. So how _is_our own little Alice in Wonderland impersonator doing today?"  
>He didn't even think of it, not until it was practically pointed out directly in his face, even if done so by someone so oblivious.<p>

The answer came hesitantly. "Uhh … Who's Alice Wonderland?"  
>Draco didn't answer.<p>

No, he had never really been much for books, much less old ones written by muggles, but there was one story he couldn't quite let go of.


	3. The Spinning Coin

_Hitting exactly a hundred words was harder than I expected.  
>Thank you for reading.<em>

**The Spinning Coin**

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><p>Her every move was soft; there was not a single sharp edge, as she twirled around herself, seemingly oblivious to her surroundings.<br>Spinning like a coin, he could never really catch her.

When you grow up in a life shaped entirely with hard lines and sharp corners, you easily end up with a desire for the exact opposite.  
>With his rough hands, he would only bruise and stain. He could never catch her without stopping the coin.<p>

Around and around she danced, with flickers of gentle innocence strewn across a worriless face.

No. He could never do that to her.


	4. Shame

**Shame**

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><p>He never actually saw her, really.<p>

He rarely went out except to work anymore, a job that undoubtedly had nothing in common with hers, and naturally they didn't really show at the same gatherings.  
>Whenever he did go out, he never looked up to see if she was there, even though the odds were so small and the streets so crowded that he could easily ignore any crown of blond hair or any face resembling her the slightest.<p>

As if not looking was supposed to make a difference at all.  
>As if he didn't see her face everywhere anyway.<p>

It was there in the way his mother looked worriedly at the circles beneath his eyes and argued passionately with her father when she thought he didn't hear.  
>In the faces of every painting in their house.<br>In his reflection in the bathroom tiles, in the sound the floor made when it gave under his feet, out of thin air the first time he saw his mother silently doing the dishes on her own, in the clenched jaw of his father on the day of his trial, whenever the distant sound of Bellatrix' laughter woke him up at night, in the stench of sweat following his nightmares, in the clean sweat of something much more endurable, in Pansy's eyes when her frown occasionally vanished. But more vividly than anywhere, on the door of the basement stairwell, smiling, _smiling_ back at him.

He would then glance quickly at his hands, because if only for a moment, he could swear he felt blood soaking his sleeves, dripping from his hands. The kind of blood that came with infinite shame and regret.

He avoided that basement entirely now.  
>He would have burned the entire house down if he could.<p> 


End file.
